The World in Terms of General Motors
- Title:
- The World in Terms of General Motors
- Alternate Title:
- The World in Terms of General Motors
- Collection:
- Persuasive Maps: PJ Mode Collection
- Creator:
- Harrison, Richard Edes
- Date:
- 1938
- Date 2:
- 2024-04-25
- ID Number:
- 2325.01
- File Name:
- PJM_2325_01.jpg
- Style/Period:
- 1920 - 1939
- Subject:
- Advertising & Promotion
Money & Finance - Measurement:
- 36 x 57 sheet (centimeters, height x width)
- Notes:
- This map by Richard Edes Harrison illustrated an article in Fortune Magazine for December 1938 on General Motors, “the world’s most complicated and most profitable manufacturing enterprise.” Fortune called the article, “a study in bigness,” and Harrison’s map emphasized the point by using two tools of persuasive cartography.
First, spheres are used to represent the location of GM’s manufacturing and assembly plants and foreign warehouses, each sphere proportional in size to the “normal” number of workers at the facility. Because large symbols are used for this purpose, the company’s facilities seem to fill most of the western world. For other example of oversized symbols filling large areas, see, e.g., ID #1167, “Flags of a Free Empire (1910); ID #2113, “45 Years Are Enough” (1989).
Second, and less common, Harrison created a cartogram, a map in which geographic space is resized (and reshaped as necessary) in proportion to some variable - in this case GM employment - rather than land area. The result of this is that areas of large GM activity like North America and Western Europe occupy a significantly greater part of the apparent world. Combined with the large spherical symbols, the company’s apparent importance is further enhanced.
Despite the way GM dominates this map, Harrison notes that many facilities were excluded here: its “many non-manufacturing interests, domestic warehouses, etc.,” as well as major companies in which GM’s ownership was less than 50 percent, such as Ethyl, Kinetic Chemicals, Bendix Aviation and North American Aviation.
Harrison drew this map well before the days of computer-assisted design. Most cartograms of the time were either simple rectangles (see ID #1184, “Contrast Between British and Chinese Empires”) or crude approximations (see ID #2002, “The Tea Is Drunk”). While we cannot be certain, it appears that Harrison here distorted parallels and meridians in order to achieve the relative geographic sizes intended, a process that would have required extensive trial and error. (Harrison's legend refers to it as a "sketch map.")
For more about Harrison and examples of his important and creative work during World War II, see ID #1290, “Three Approaches to the United States” (1940) and ID #2130, “The World Divided” (1941).
For further information on the Collector’s Notes and a Feedback/Contact Link, see https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/about-collection-personal-statement and https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/content/feedback-and-contact - Source:
- Fortune Magazine, December 1938.
- Format:
- Image
- Rights:
- For important information about copyright and use, see http://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/copyright.